Regarding The Post’s Sept. 12 front-page article “Spawned on Facebook, a racist smear gets the GOP megaphone”:

We need to have a very different conversation about what’s happening in Springfield, Ohio, than the one prompted by the recent presidential debate. In our haste to make sure that we are not sharing fake news, we also must make sure that we aren’t obstructing the spread of real news and alienating potential voters in the process.

Springfield received national attention after a New York Times article about the arrival of as many as 20,000 Haitians in the city in the past few years. This is a city that in 2020 had a population of only 58,000. The story of the town’s adjustment to its changing population is representative of what’s happening in many places in America. Rapid immigration is a huge burden on the housing market, and it increases rent for everyone. It affects employment opportunities. The clash of cultures creates confusion and exacerbates fears.

Immigration isn’t the only thing that can cause these sorts of pressures. A recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast, “Not Built For This,” discussed what happened in Chico, Calif., when the town of Paradise went up in flames during the Camp Fire. The city’s housing supply was already strained before the fire, and people lived in tent cities at Walmart when there was nowhere else for them to go. If you put thousands of new people in any city, you’re going to have problems, especially given how hard it is to build housing quickly. And these new residents of Chico weren’t immigrants, they were native-born Americans displaced from a natural disaster.

Given the way the conversation about Springfield has shifted to a focus on Donald Trump and JD Vance’s false claims about Haitian migrants stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets, one might almost suspect that the cat story was a red herring designed to put Democrats in a mocking, vindictive mindset to distract them from the legitimate issues at play.

Democrats need to learn to resist that mindset, and find an empathetic angle in responding to every single claim Republicans make. That will not only show that Democrats are paying attention to the real issues but also demonstrate the racist and xenophobic ways that Republicans tend to present them. By just making fun of the story with cat memes, rather than responding to the issues in Springfield, Democrats appear unserious about the real problems facing Americans. Instead, they need to dismiss these ugly distractions and focus on the substance. That’s how you reach those voters. That’s how you bridge the gap.

Corinne Converse, Syracuse, N.Y.

Some ‘joke’

The Post’s Sept. 11 online analysis, “4 takeaways from the first Trump-Harris presidential debate” pointed out some very obvious issues with former president Donald Trump’s performance, while also finding reasonable criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris’s answers. It was a good analysis, and everyone is talking about the former president’s crazy words. I’m concerned with what’s behind the words.

It’s painful to hear the allegation that people who happen to be of a different race are stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets. It’s so outrageous that it has incited possible violence; a Thursday bomb threat on the city apparently included “hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians.”

I don’t see these migrants coming to the United States out of desire but rather out of a dire need to survive. Many of these people are fleeing violence from gangs.

Yes, the arrival of a lot of new people does sometime cause problems. But as Americans, we are supposed to work together to come up with solutions, rather than to treat non-White foreigners as bad people. Can’t we come up with ideas and solutions, and perhaps pass a bill in Congress, to get started on solving the problems? I’m concerned with people who will think it’s their place to be vigilantes because the former president and his cronies are pushing memes rather than talking about serious solutions to these issues.

J.E. Sheri, Seattle

What Haiti has endured

Regarding The Post’s Sept. 12 online article “Springfield bomb threat used ‘hateful’ language toward migrants, Haitians, mayor says”:

I’m alarmed by the dehumanizing language deployed against Haitian migrants in connection with a bomb threat on Springfield, Ohio.

Over the past several decades, Haitian immigrants have successfully assimilated into U.S. society. Many have become doctors, teachers, lawyers, accountants and cabdrivers, just like other immigrants who have arrived to this country. One became the first Black White House press secretary. Haitians have endured the brutal dictatorship of the Duvalier era, transitional governments, political corruption, natural disasters such as the devastating 2010 earthquake and other upheaval, including the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse. Today, gangs continue to destabilize the country.

My extended family has experienced some of this instability in Haiti. One cousin, a prisoner of conscience under the Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier regime in the 1970s, was freed through the intervention of the Carter administration. My half brother was kidnapped and later released by Haitian gangs, and another relative experienced violence.

Haitians immigrants come from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to become proud, productive Americans and we should recognize their essential contributions.

Mark Carrie, Laguna Niguel, Calif.

What Americans owe Haiti

I wasn’t very surprised when Donald Trump repeated the scurrilous lie that Haitians in Ohio were eating the pet dogs and cats of their neighbors. He’s been trafficking in racist invective for decades and the fact that it hasn’t cost him politically is a national disgrace.

Clearly, Mr. Trump, like many Americans, is clueless about the debt this country owes the beleaguered Haitians. Anyone who’s studied the Louisiana Purchase, whereby the United States gained a vast territory West of the Mississippi at a bargain price, knows we have Haiti to thank. We were able to nearly double the size of our country by securing all that acreage for a measly $15 million.

The reason Napoleon Bonaparte was willing to part with this land was rooted in the 1791 slave rebellion in Haiti, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, which put much of what was then known as Hispaniola under the control of former slaves. When Napoleon sent his brother-in-law with an army to retake the colony, the campaign ended in humiliating defeat. The self-proclaimed emperor realized his hopes for a French empire in the Americas financed by Haitian sugar were doomed. So, when President Thomas Jefferson offered to buy the Louisiana territory, Bonaparte jumped at the chance to transfer the land to American hands, rather than to a European rival.

Instead of spreading hateful lies about Haitians, Mr. Trump and his people should be thanking them for the part their ancestors played in our country’s westward expansion.

Robert D. Croog, Chevy Chase

A vicious history

The nasty rumor about pet-stealing, pet-cooking and pet-eating immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, might be rooted in misunderstandings about the practice of animal sacrifice in traditional Haitian Vodou religious rites. It is also, certainly, rooted in a long history of racist prejudice against Haitians.

Donald Trump is not the first person to traffic in such slurs. In his 1888 book “The English in the West Indies,” James Anthony Froude said an English official told him that “Children were sacrificed as in the old days of Moloch and were devoured with horrid ceremony, salted limbs being preserved and sold for the benefit of those who were unable to attend the full solemnities.”

Fast forward to 1982, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated in an Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that Haitians were at increased risk for acquiring HIV/AIDS. This fit well with (inaccurate) theories circulating at the time that AIDS had originated in Haiti and that it was linked to Haitian Vodou.

Enough already. Leave those poor people alone.

Denis Cotter, Middleburg, Va.

A delicious irony

Xenophobic Americans accusing immigrants of vile eating habits is nothing new. The name of one of America’s iconic foods is a memorial to one such incident: “Hot dog” is a joke term that comes from the accusation that German butchers used dogs to make sausages.

In the 19th century, Germans immigrated to America in great numbers. They were often disliked and were the butt of many jokes, one of which was that when German butchers appeared in a town or neighborhood, all the dogs disappeared. There are contemporary cartoons about this, and the 1864 song “Der Deitcher’s Dog” widely known as “Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?” was inspired by this urban legend. So, it’s a bit ironic that Donald Trump should employ a slur that might have been directed at his own ancestors at Haitian migrants.

Bruce Kraig, Makanda, Ill.

The writer is the author of “Hot Dog: A Global History.”